WEEK 7:

This week on our field trip, we went to a very popular tourist destination, Chinatown. In fact, more visitors come to Chinatown each year than Golden Gate Bridge. The Chinatown in San Francisco is the largest Chinatown outside of Asia and is also the oldest Chinatown in North America, built in 1848. Roughly speaking, the Chinatown is a mile by a mile and a half wide, showing just how big it is. On top of this, Chinatown houses the largest Chinese community outside of Asia. It is a very densely populated urban area, with about 15,000 residents living within the 20 block area.  

Chinatown is its own district, meaning it is majorly different from other places in San Francisco. It has it’s own customs, places of worship and languages. While entering the Gateway Arch, that serves as the entrance to Chinatown on Grant Avenue and Bush Street, one is fully immersed in the chinese culture.  Immediately you see the red lanterns hanging from the buildings, the chinese restaurants and shops. Visitors are attracted to this lively, colorful district for the culture, bargain-shopping and restaurants. 

The signage is very different from the other signage we see around the city. As it was said on the field trip, the signage closely resembles what you would see in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, or other major Asian cities. Much of the signage is hanging from the buildings, and is stacked on top of each other.  By this I mean there was signs for others places on top of the buildings while some of the signs are near eye level advertise something else. Much of the signage is in Chinese, but some are simply written in english. A lot of the bargain signs, such as “2 shirts for $10,” were written in english, because signs such as this attract the tourists. Yet there were older signs for a newspaper that was written in Chinese characters, because items such as these are targeted towards the people that live within Chinatown or members of the Chinese community. Finally, another type of signage I noticed was signs written in chinese with translation written under it. One example of this was for a restaurant, written in characters but under that sign it says “seafood restaurant.” This allows both tourists and community members to get information from the signs. 

Chinatown has a rich history. Chinese immigrants began coming to the area between 1850 to 1900’s, from China’s Guangdong Providence. The immigrants came to work as shopkeepers, mine workers in the Gold Rush, and as hired workers. The large number of immigrants came over and were able to form their own town within the city. Historically, there was a lot of racial tension and riots in response to the growing number of immigrants. As the tension began to grow, the U.S. government passed the Chinese Excursion Act, which greatly reduced the number of Chinese allowed into the country. This greatly effected the population of Chinatown. After World War II, this law was retracted- the 1950‘s, and the growth began again after this time. In response to the racism, a labor recruiting organization was created to provide the community a voice, and this organization still stands in the community today. In 1906, when the San Francisco earthquake hit, Chinatown was destroyed. We did however, visit a church in Chinatown that was not destroyed in the quake. It served as a shelter to the community in the time of need. 

After visiting Chinatown and researching the unique area, I was interested in the history of this district. The picture below shows the area before the 1906 earthquake. The area doesn’t look like it does nowadays, the buildings and the signage looks completely different. A reason for this, was when the Chinese immigrants came to San Francisco they faced discrimination, poverty and language barriers. They lived in this area for their protection, being separated from severe racial violence. When the earthquake hit and destroyed most of the area, the people living in this area were able to rebuild the area to fit their culture. The image below was from before the earthquake. You can see that the buildings don’t look like they do today.

Wherever you go in Chinatown there is always something to visit. Each shop is unique, with many different souvenirs, each delicious chinese restaurant is different, and the chinese temples varies from the others. The architecture is very much so like what you would see in China, with the pagoda-like roof and the lampposts that are decorated with dragon motifs. Chinatown, the very well visited, large, unique district in San Francisco has a rich history and culture. I was happy to be able to pick up a few souvenirs from the trip to remember everything amazing I saw. I enjoyed being immersed in a different culture, the chinese culture and can’t wait to go back to visit.